dentship he held in the county of Surrey (Wood
calls it distinctly a Major-Generalship at last, but that is surely
an exaggeration), two Oliverian poems, one called _The Protector: A
Poem briefly illustrating the Supereminency of that Dignity,_ the
other _A Rapture occasioned by the late miraculous Deliverance of
his Highness the Lord Protector from a desperate danger_.[1] In
stronger and more compact style, though still rather rough, Andrew
Marvell, in the same year, had added to his former praises of
Cromwell a poem of 400 lines, published in a broad-sheet, with the
title _The First Anniversary of the Government under his Highness
the Lord Protector_. It began:--

[Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 762-772.]

"Like the vain curlings of the watery maze
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years,
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,
Sun-like, the stages of succeeding suns;
And still the day which he doth next restore
Is the just wonder of the day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring;
'Tis he the force of scattered Time contracts,
And in one year the work of ages acts."[1]

[Footnote 1: Marvell's Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, I. 169-170.]

But the most far-blazoned eulogy at the time, and the smoothest to
read now, was one in forty-seven stanzas, which appeared May 31,
1655, with the title _A Panegyric to my Lord Protector of the
present greatness and joint interest of his Highness and this Nation,
by E. W., Esq._ The author was Edmund Waller, still under a cloud
for his old transgression, but recovering himself gradually by his
wealth, his plausibility and fine manners, and his powers of
versifying. Here are four of the stanzas:--

"Your drooping country, torn by civil hate,
Restored by you, is made a glorious state,
The seat of Empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom.

"The sea's our own; and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.

"Heaven, that hath placed this Island to give law
To balance Europe and its states to awe,
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,--
The greates